We got up at 4 in the morning and headed for Denver International Airport. I forgot to pack my swimsuit, and somehow left my camera behind while taking everything around it... which might have something to do with the fact that I didn't get any sleep at all, despite my best efforts. Despite my making us late in an attempt to get the camera (only to realize I'd left the keys to the condo behind with my Dad), we made our flight on time and Sierra gave me her camera to use for the rest of the trip. This might actually be a good thing, as it gives the user a bit more control, which came in handy for some dark photos.

We arrived at Atlanta, Georgia after noon and checked in at our hotel... the original hotel we'd reserved went out of business, so we were transferred to one a couple train stops away from the con, but it was HUGE... it was a one bedroom suite with a full kitchen, a living room, a sitting room (with a fold-out couch bed that I used) and a large bathroom with a washer and dryer

. A nice homeless guy gave us a short tour on the way there in exchange for a donation, and once we'd unpacked, we headed back to the train and arrived at DragonCon.

The line for preregistration stretched halfway around the block, and we had to wait at least an hour to get our badges and schedules... whereas there was no line at all for registration at the con itself. Waiting in line gave us a glimpse of the vast number of people at the con... it was far, far larger than I'd realized, with thousands in attendance. There weren't as many costumes as I'd expected- only about 20% of people were wearing some sort of costume, but there were so many people that this still made a constant stream of weird and awesome outfits to look at, and the vast scope of the con meant you weren't as likely to see the same people over and over. It turned out the con was in FOUR main hotels, with minor events in at least four more. As you can imagine, this made planning out events incredibly difficult, since at any given time there were a dozen or more events happening over 8 hotels... we spent a couple hours trying to choose between all the things we wanted to see that were competing with each other, and even when we got it figured out, we still missed some events because there just wasn't time to get between hotels, and because a lot of them had people in line an hour or more in advance, making it impossible to get in if we'd gone to anything else prior

In fact, the only event we managed to catch the first day was the Mystery Science Theater 3000 one, which was pretty amazing... pretty much everyone except Mike was there, and they played the Cinematic Titanic East Meets Watts and answered a bunch of questions. Just seeing them there in person and hearing their voices after watching them on TV for years was an amazing experience. I normally don't go to events at cons, and instead just wander around hanging out with my friends... but the events at DragonCon were actually really interesting. Ironically, it was a little too big to effectively go to events... it would be far better suited to my usual habit of wandering around randomly, which usually gets boring after a while, but would last much longer in such an enormous environment.

I did still manage to get a lot of pictures going between events and waiting in lines, though. The amount of beautiful women in revealing outfits was mind-blowing... I think this very well might have been one nerd convention with more girls than guys. If I'd had more time and hadn't been tagging along behind my big sisters, I might have even worked up the courage to talk to some of them beyond asking for a picture.

Anyway, that was pretty much it for Friday. We missed a lot because we arrived in mid-afternoon, but still got a taste of the amazing size and diversity of DragonCon, with costumes and events from almost every genre you could name. I still couldn't sleep that night, though I tried.

I'm in New York now, updating the blog now that I finally have time, but it's getting late and I should get to bed- tomorrow we're going to be doing stuff in Manhattan fairly early. I'll try to get caught up as soon as I can, so keep an eye out for more DragonCon pictures in the next couple days!